


Fate

by ThisisallMarvelsfault



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, No volleyball but still volleyball AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22521925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisisallMarvelsfault/pseuds/ThisisallMarvelsfault
Summary: They never played with each other, but volleyball still brought them together.[AU in which Hinata never saw the Little Giant on TV and never went to Karasuno]
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 4
Kudos: 116





	Fate

**Author's Note:**

> This started as basically a twitter prompt from @tobeeo_ and suddenly it had 800 likes, so here’s the whole thing. 
> 
> Original tweet: Hinata stops on the way home. The national game is on TV in a shop window and he stays to watch. Someone cheers when Japan gets a service ace, and Hinata finds a tall dark-haired boy standing next to him and staring up at the TV.  
> “You like volleyball?” Hinata asks.

SUMMER 2012

The cicadas are so loud, their sound echoing in the thick forest along the road, louder than Hinata's pants as he pushes his way up the mountain. His mom asked him to run to the next town over to pick something up and he agreed, even in the hot afternoon sun.

Once he has what he needs, he pauses to enjoy the shade under an awning of a run-down electronics store. It's a couple days into the 2012 Olympic Games, and one of the big TVs up in the display was playing a volleyball match. 

Hinata was so mesmerized by the spiker that he never noticed the boy walking up beside him. When Japan gets a service ace, he let out a quiet "yes!" under his breath, and Hinata turns to find a tall dark-hared boy standing next to him and staring up at the TV.

"You like volleyball?" Hinata asks.

The boy squinted down at him in confusion.

"Yeah, don't you?" He asks back.

Hinata wants to argue, but he knows better than to pick a fight with a stranger on the street. He looks back at the TV to check the score before getting on his bike and leaving the tall dark-haired boy at the store. 

When Hinata got home, he started looking into volleyball. 

* * *

FALL 2015

Hinata taps his card on the top of the bar in anticipation.

His university's women's volleyball team is in the semifinals and watching it on the dirty bar TV is making his fingers itch for his camera. They're playing in Hokkaido, otherwise Hinata would be covering the game. Instead, he has a night off and managed to find the only bar this close to campus that was playing the game. 

Izumi spends most of the night trying to distract Hinata from the game, but it's no use. Hinata offers to buy the next round of drinks so he can stand at the bar and get a better view of the TV.

"You go to Tokyo U?" The bartender asks while filling their pints.

"Yeah! I work for the campus paper, usually covering sports!"

"Cool," the bartender replies, but he sounds completely uninterested.

Hinata loves volleyball, but the high school near his childhood home didn't have a team. Rather than playing, Hinata watched every game and read every story he could. With his bright personality, his teachers recommended journalism. Hinata enjoyed the idea of watching all the important games, interviewing players and travelling with teams. He went for it and now he's in Tokyo learning from some of the best.

Homework sucks, but he's studying a lot and working hard. And he lives with his childhood friends, Izumi and Koji, and Tokyo is so cool and fast and awesome!

When his school team wins, he tells the bartender to put on volleyball world cup next and gets a grunt in reply.

Hinata goes to the bathroom and gets shoved on his way out the door. When Hinata’s picking up all his drinks at the bar, the man who bumped into him at the bathroom comes to the bar, puts down some money and leaves in a hurry. Or as fast as he can, he seems to be favouring his leg. 

"I think that was Kageyama Tobio," says a girl in Hinata's class when he gets back to the table.

"Really? The one that got hurt before he could go pro?"

"Yeah! That one! He did have a hat on though, so I might be wrong."

Hinata can still see his back as he crossed the busy intersection in front of the bar and he doesn't look back to the table until the man is out of sight.

"He looks more like the guy I saw a couple years ago ..."

"What was that, Hinata?"

"Nothing, Izumi! Here's your drink!"

* * *

FALL 2018

The stadium is filling up and the away team is ready to take the court for warmups. Hinata adjusts his tie on the sidelines as he looks up to the jumbotron.

He's been with this sports network for two years, first as an intern while he finished school and now as a part-time sports analyst. He's lucky to have worked his way up for months on the weekends, because now he's actually on TV for the first time. Season opener for the Adlers. He'd only have three segments, but he'd be on TV! 

"Can you hear me?" Hinata asks into the microphone in his hands.

"Yup! You've got five minutes until you go live, Taka-chan is bringing out your guest."

"Great!" Hinata pulls his phone out to read over his questions before the coach showed up.

Kageyama Tobio played his best volleyball in high school for Shiratorizawa Academy. Everyone had high expectations for him, he was even asked to tryout for Japan's U19 team, but ultimately suffered a career-ending injury in his final trip to nationals. He was already scouted by pro teams, but he never was the same player after that. Nevertheless, the Adlers kept him on and gave him a new purpose: Coaching.

He went to school part-time for sports management, worked with the team and players on training and meals and practices. He learned how to better communicate with people, how to deal with player agents and trainers, how to explain to others the way he sees volleyball. Now he’s as the youngest coach in D1 volleyball, training the likes of Ushijima Wakatoshi and Hoshiumi Kourai.

Hinata watched every YouTube clip with this Kageyama guy. He read every story, even the boring quotes in a generic game story. He had to be prepared for his very first live TV interview, and he was prepared. Backup questions for the backup questions. 

"Hinata!" That's Taka-chan, ushering a gangly man in a collared Alders shirt. "Here he is!"

And that's when Kageyama Tobio stands under the light and it all comes back to Hinata. "It's you!"

"What does that mean?"

"Hinata, four minutes." 

"Right!" Hinata puts away his phone and situates Kageyama where he needs him, but Kageyama stands in awkward silence until he can't any more.

"What do you mean, it's me?"

"Oh," Hinata says, and looking up into his eyes now feels like going back six years to that muggy summer heat with a rude tall boy. "We ran into each other in Miyagi once. Remember that electronics store? Down from the Sakanoshita?"

"That was you?"

"Yeah! But I didn't know you were Kageyama Tobio, the youngest person to ever coach in Division I V-League!"

"Three minutes, Hinata."

"That was years ago," Kageyama says, but his face looks hot in the camera spotlight. "And you're only connecting the dots now?"

"Well you don't frown this much in pictures."

"Dumb-" Kageyama goes even darker, but doesn't finish his train of thought. Hinata laughs.

"Good catch! You can't say that when the cameras are on. Don't worry at all, OK? I'm going to ask you a couple questions about your job and how you're feeling tonight and you'll go back to the bench in no time."

"OK," Kageyama says, and the tilted smile he gives Hinata shouldn't make his heart beat so fast.

"Two minutes, Hinata."

"I can't believe I met Kageyama Tobio six years ago and didn't even know it."

"It was the 2012 Olympics. The women won bronze that year."

"Yeah! They beat South Korea in straight sets. Kimura Saori finished the tournament with 142 points, it was amazing!"

"One minute, Hinata."

"Hmm," Kageyama says, tilting his head to the side. "You didn't seem this interested in volleyball back then."

"I wasn't," Hinata says, reaching over to cheekily adjust Kageyama's collar before his cameraman starts to count down. Hinata gives Kageyama his best smile to watch him squirm. "But I am now."

The interview goes very well, and he doesn't stumble over his sign-off. His next two segments go well, and Hinata feels like he's been hit by lucky lightning the way his body is buzzing. He's still on his live-action high when he sees Kageyama Tobio again, this time at the arena’s back exit. 

"Hey!" Hinata shouts to the broad shoulders he spent most of the game staring at. Kageyama stops and holds the door open for Hinata when he comes skipping out onto the sidewalk. "Are you doing anything after this?"

"Sorry?" He's wearing that dumb confused look he had in front of the camera before. For some reason, Hinata finds it endearing.

"Can I buy you a drink? Talk to you for a bit? I feel like there's a reason fate brought us back together today!"

"It's not fate," Kageyama says, but his hand grips the strap of his gym bag a little tighter. "I'm a volleyball coach, you're a volleyball TV analyst, we were bound to meet at some point."

"Oh, come on. It's too weird. Can I _please_ buy you a drink?"

"Only if you buy food, too."

"Sold!"

They smile at each other and walk toward the subway.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter @whatakeenbean1


End file.
